The subject matter disclosed herein relates to the art of rotor control and, more specifically, to a concentric rotor control system.
A number of different types of aircraft use rotors to impart motion to the aircraft, including tilt-wing, tilt-rotor and dual counter-rotating rotor blade aircraft. The rotor blades are typically controlled through cyclic control and collective control. Main rotor pitch control is typically achieved through a swashplate assembly that transfers motion of non-rotating control members to rotating control members. The swashplate assembly is typically concentrically mounted about a rotor shaft. A typical swashplate assembly includes two rings connected by a series of bearings. One ring is mounted to the aircraft (stationary) and another ring is mounted to a hub portion of the rotor shaft (rotating). Movements in the stationary ring are transferred to the rotating ring to control blade pitch.
Existing aircraft (e.g., tilt-rotor, tilt-wing, dual counter-rotating rotor blade) often have limited space between the transmission and rotor. Thus, providing collective and cyclic rotor control can be difficult in such limited space. A compact rotor control system would be well received in the art.